When this website started taking off a bit (meaning when the readership doubled to 8), the most popular question I received was "Who the hell is Mike Lupica?". 

This taught me something: most sports bloggers aren't NYC-centric.  It struck me as odd, considering that almost every popular non-sports blog/site is either NYC or LA centered.  But it became more and more apparent that, duh, most sports bloggers aren't chilling in NYC.  Our boy Jack Cobra is somewhere in the midwest, perhaps Indiana; Jordi from The Serious Tip is in Florida; MC Bias is in Cleveland; The Extrapolater is Southern (we heard that podcast the other day), perhaps Virginia?; D-Wil from The Starting Five is in Vermont, we believe, Ricky is in Italy, Rickhouse is in Chicago, and so on... basically we have Posting & Toasting somewhere in Jersey, and that's all I know.  

But to answer the larger question on "Who is Mike Lupica", I'll let The Big Lead do it - from their fantastic interview with Mike Vaccaro, a Post writer (it's a little long):

Q: We have to ask about Lupica. There are at least two other NY-area writers who wanted to do interviews with us, but wouldn’t because of the Lupica question. Are you and Lupica on speaking terms? We’ve got our own theories as to why the masses detest the guy, but do you have any idea as to why he’s so loathed? At the same time … how much of a rivalry is there between the sports guys at both papers?

At the start, let’s be very clear about something: there is an entire generation of sports columnists working in the United States, dozens and dozens of them, between the ages of 30 and 50 who grew up reading Lupica and realizing: that’s what I want to do. That’s how the job is supposed to be done. You better believe I was one of those acolytes. And I’ll tell you something: if you get a rainy day, you should go to the library, pick up a few rolls of microfilm, and read the stuff he was doing in the ’70s and the ’80s. Read the stuff he was writing as a 23-year-old kid at the Post; it’s staggering. Read the stuff he did in his prime at the Daily News in the ’80s; it absolutely redefined the form. It’s my opinion that no one who ever lived wrote a sports column better than Lupica did from, say, 1979-89. Not Cannon. Not Red Smith. Not Jim Murray. No one.

I can only speak for myself here, but there are two problems I have with what’s become of him. First, and foremost, is that he simply doesn’t put nearly as much time or effort into the column as he once did. That’s indisputable. He does TV. He writes books, sometimes two a year. He writes his left-wing screeds in the Daily News on Wednesdays. So it’s clear the column suffers for that. He hardly ever travels. He hasn’t covered one Knicks game in person this year, despite ripping them every week. And that’s just the obvious symptoms. Beyond that, I’ve heard him give his explanation for why he doesn’t show up as often anymore, and it’s essentially this: After nearly 30 years writing a column in New York, he’s not going to see anything he hasn’t already seen before. And to me, that not only insults those of us who do think it’s worthwhile to get to the ballpark and the arena – specifically the other columnists at the News who have to make up for the work he finds so unnecessary and inconsequential – but it’s an affront to the very essence of column writing, which is to be accountable and available, to be there.

The other issue I have, frankly, is the way he treats people. I’ve been around too many good, talented people who also write columns for a living – Dave Anderson leaps to mind, and Harvey Araton, and Filip Bondy, and Mark Kriegel, and Bob Ryan, Steve Serby, and Bill Plaschke, it’s a substantial list – who believe that treating others properly is just as much a part of having a high-profile job as anything else. They won’t throw a public fit if they don’t like the seat they’ve been given. They won’t threaten to have people fired in a hissy fit. One of the great ironies, to me, is that Mike made his bones in this business by standing up to Dick Young, who in his declining years became a bitter ideologue who took great pleasure in ripping other writers in his columns. Young, I have to believe, is having a great laugh right now whenever he reads Lupica writing about “the coverage” of the local teams from high atop his Connecticut perch.

As for our relationship, we have none. It ended when I came to the Post, he started lobbing subtle, stupid shots at me in his “Lip” column and I started returning fire in my Sunday column. It’s unfortunate. The guy used to be a hero of mine.

Alright, so that's who Lupica is, long answer.  Short answer: He's the old skool Bill Simmons.  Much like every freaking sportsblogger/writer owes Bill Simmons, those of us who are old enough to have been around in the 80's remember the influence of Mike Lupica.  His columns were revolutionary.  Then he disappeared, became a talking head on ESPN.  He stopped watching sports, and became just full of rhetoric.  He's the Brett Favre of sportswriters, if Favre keeps his postponing his retirement for another two decades; Lupica is someone who should have retired a long time ago, before he turned his legacy to sh*t.  It's too late now, and Bill Simmons should wake up screaming every night when he thinks of what became of Lupica.  

Lupica has written only about three things in the past year or two... seriously.  Here they are:

1) Barry Bonds is ruining baseball.  No one has championed this topic with as much glee as Lupica.  He's out there quoting The Game of Shadows as if it is gospel, and not a book that had so many unproven allegations in it that the Pulitzer Prize committee refused to allow it to be entered in the nonfiction sports writing category.   Think about that. 

Lupica's patented retort about Bonds and the Game of Shadows (which means Curt Schilling pirated it yesterday, when he said almost the same thing): "if everything is made up, ask yourself this: Where are the lawyers?  Why hasn't Bonds sued for libel?"

Um, because winning a libel suit is difficult, that's why.  It's very hard to prove in court.  For example, I could write that Mike Lupica and Curt Schilling are both baby rapers.  No, it's true.  They are both baby rapers.  Want proof:  Well, if they are not, then why haven't they sued for libel?  It's because they are both baby rapers.

Great argument, Holmes.  It's also worth noting that, thanks to TSF, we now know that Bonds' lawyer did, in fact, sue the authors.  But not for libel, which would be hard to prove; instead, they took a more practical approach, trying to argue that they were profiting off illegal obtained info.  And if you think the TSF is just spitting rhetoric, note that the Sports Law Blog first suggested this approach made more sense than suing for libel in California ("Thus, I think Bonds asserted the proper claim because he doesn’t have to prove falsity and that the authors published the statements with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity (as he would be required to do in a libel suit)”.

Mike Lupica is the east coast version of Jeff Pearlman.  For a great response to Jeff Pearlman's nonsense interview with Deadspin (note to Deadspin: we like you better when you were apolitical; when do you officially start working for ESPN?) see this great Signal 2 Noise post. 

2) A-Rod and the Yankees suck.   Okay, this is a constant feature of a Lupica column... the Yankees are overpaid.  Torre is going to get fired.  A-Rod is a choker.  All the usual rhetoric you hear on ESPN, and on every blog.  So why would I care if it's Lupica's calling card?  

Um, because he writes this in the New York Daily News. 

It's also my problem with the MSM's coverage of baseball in general.  A lot of people talk about the "East Coast Bias" of the media, of ESPN.  Get it right, though: It's not an East Coast bias, it's a Red Sox bias.  I don't care to get into a Yankees-Red Sox argument (I specifically avoid talking about the Yankees because I hate the rhetoric that comes from both sides), but do understand this... ESPN's most prominent baseball writers are all Red Sox fans.  Bill Simmons, check.  Peter Gammons, check.  Jim Caple, check.  Buster Olney, despite covering the Yankees, is from Vermont (Red Sox country).  On and on.

The most prominent NYC newspaper writer:  Mike Lupica.  Red Sox fan from Connecticut.  Get the pattern?  Name me one actual Yankee fan who covers baseball for the MSM?  Hard to find one.  

In the meanwhile, we get diluted with predictable stories from the MSM about how A-Rod sucks, how he chokes, and how Yankee fans hate him.  A few week back Lupica wrote about how A-Rod should opt out of his contract and sign somewhere else, because "he won't have to deal with fans that hate him, and a media (referring directly to the Post front page article) that follows him everywhere".  He disregards that the Yankees "fans" that root against A-Rod have always been a small minority that have been brainwashed by the local and national sportsmedia.  And that right now A-Rod is greeted with M-V-P chants every night.

In the next breath in that same article, Lupica suggested an ideal destination for A-Rod would be Boston.  Because, just to bring it on home: yeah, Boston has fans that don't hate A-Rod, and a laid back media! 

Check this gem from last Sunday's column: 

"Julio Lugo, Red Sox shortstop, was hitting .225 after Friday night's games, with six homers and 47 RBI.

Derek Jeter, who was hitting 104 points higher than Lugo, had seven home runs and 48 RBI.

I just thought you should know that." 

Word up, god.  Thanks for the info.  What about OBP and Slugging%?  What about runs?  Hits?  Yeah, what was your point again?  A guy whose OBP is .290 is as good as a guy whose BA is .337?  That Jeter's batting average is higher than Lugo's slugging%?!?

Mike Lupica's agenda on with regards to the Yankees (and A-Rod) has always been very clear.

3) The Knicks, Isiah Thomas and James Dolan:  We covered this extensively during the NBA regular season.  Lupica often rips Dolan and Isiah simply out of anger for the firing of his boy Larry Brown.  We've chronicled the outlandish crap he spews about the Knicks on a weekly basis.  We'll leave it alone for now, but Lupica's chummy relationship with Larry Brown is one of the main reasons that coverage of the Knicks got super negative after Brown was fired, with the target of the rage being Isiah Thomas.  Like the job that Zeke is doing or not (I'm still indifferent), the coverage is so biased it makes one want to fight!  Hey, baby raper... why don't you retire and let someone else take your place?  You've criticized athletes who have stayed around too long... stop being a hypocrite!

Inspired by commenter Bob (big tip of the hat), we searched and found... the origin of Mike Lupica's well documented hate:

Random YouTube clip:

 

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